


miles to go

by Elendraug



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s13e04 The Big Empty, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 20:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21344272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elendraug/pseuds/Elendraug
Summary: the greatest gift I’d give you would be to stand by your side.
Relationships: Balthazar/Castiel (Supernatural)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	miles to go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaiyote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiyote/gifts).

> ♫ céline dion: [miles to go (before I sleep)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOKlcZFPiCM)
> 
> I really loved this song as a kid, and I still do
> 
> sorry balthazar, I unironically associate her music with you now
> 
> thank you kai for talking with me about SPN now that I'm back, I appreciate you
> 
> thank you fox for giving this a once-over and for talking with me about SPN even though you only have half the context for the recent stuff I'm going on about, lmao, I appreciate you too
> 
> also [this fanart](http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/File:Castiel-Balthazarfanart_.jpg) is beautiful, please go check it out

* * *

COSMIC ENTITY  
Angels and demons, you all come here when you die.

CASTIEL  
Every angel that ever died is here?

* * *

In the liminal moments before Castiel comes to consciousness, touch graces him prior to sight, with fingertips far gentler than the mirrored mimicry of the entity who had ensnared him. His head rests heavily on the solid warmth of a thigh, his cheek against the scratch of denim, his breath in the space behind a bent knee.

He recognizes his presence before he opens his eyes, but in all his experience, seeing remains insufficient to substantiate belief. Regardless, he allows his gaze to settle on the familiar fabric as familial fingers settle into stroking his hair, and as he gives voice to a penitent protest. 

“But I killed you.” Castiel brings his palm up to grip his kneecap, to assure himself there’s sapience at work inside this apparition of a borrowed body. “How could you be here?” 

“You know what they say about absence and the heart.” Balthazar brushes through the short, dark strands, his nails just shy of scratching his scalp. “There’s a pearl of wisdom for you. Never did manage to get my hands on that one.”

“Hm?” he responds, nearly nonverbal, unsure of the allusion. He soldiers on, soothed by the careful attention but not by his conscience. “I mourned your death. Twice.”

“Oh, Cassie,” he admonishes, affectionate. He traces his fingertips down from his hair to his jawline, over stubble in stasis so long as its otherworldly owner doesn’t dwell upon its existence. “_Rejoice_ in it. In this dreamless sleep, I’m outside of our creator’s control at last.”

“But I love you.” Castiel squeezes at his knee, shifts his head to tilt further into his lap, drapes his arm over his crossed legs. All tension within him eases as he exhales, as he’s wound down and stopped, in some circumstance that leaves him near-imperceptibly still in motion, as a celestial cosmological constant.

“And I love you.” Balthazar smooths his bangs back, away from his forehead, then lays his other hand over Castiel’s to interlace their fingers. “Wouldn’t you rather I were a fond memory than a constant, festering disappointment?”

Cas looks up and sees his face only in his peripheral vision, a glimpse of a facet of his person, fleeting, flickering as he blinks. “When can I rest?”

“Soon. Not long now, to tell you the truth.” He rubs his thumb over Castiel’s knuckles, down the side of his forefinger. “But you’ve got a long way to go first, and others are waiting on you back home, aren’t they?”

Brightness encircles Balthazar’s backlit skull, his features obscured by surreal rim lighting unlike holy fire; the notion of home seems unattainable. He stares toward him all the same, casting away the saltwater caught amidst his eyelashes, _lacrimae_ for both form and void.

“Everything’s changed,” Castiel says, tightening his grip on his hand, anchored for this instant alone. When he continues, he falters before he can finish the future continuous. “But I’ll always be...”

“Castiel, my dearest friend.” Balthazar procures petals from the aether to crown him with chrysanthemums, as yellow as the sun, pollinated by spelling bees in someone else’s heaven. With his left hand adorning his hair and his right stationary in his hold, Balthazar sighs and smiles as they stay interlocked, a layered camaraderie, as inseparable as a catenane. “I know.”

The cawing of crows and the scent of ripened blackberries float into focus. Castiel is at once aware of Earth beneath him, of tall grass against his skin, of his trenchcoat tangled around him on this Thursday, his vessel restored intact and physically unharmed. He raises himself and takes in the simple wonder of the flowering descendants of the Cretaceous, of the May birdsong and vines reaching out to his senses.

Grounded once again for better or worse, Castiel closes his eyes to bask in solar warmth, and inhales.


End file.
